Saint Constantine the Great and his mother Saint Helen.

Saint Constantine the Great and his mother Saint Helen. 

On 21st May we celebrate the feast of Saint Constantine the Great and his mother Saint Helen. For their momental contributions to the establishment of Christianity as the dominant religion of the Roman Empire, they are honoured with the title “Equals to the Apostles”. St Constantine was born in 272 in Naissus (Niš, Serbia), and was the son of Constantius I Chlorus who became the senior emperor in the west after the co-emperors Diocletian and Maximian stepped down in 305. 

Constantine was raised by his pious Christian mother Helen, and served in the imperial court and military of the emperors Diocletian and Galerius. Upon his father’s death in 306, Constantine was proclaimed emperor. He was soon embroiled in civil wars with his co-emperors as they contended for power. In 313, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, making him the first Roman emperor to legalise Christianity. This was a groundbreaking shift in policy, as the Empire had brutally persecuted Christians since the 1st century for not adhering to the traditional pagan customs.

In 324, Constantine became the sole Roman emperor after defeating Licinius, the emperor in the East and a persecutor of Christians. Under Constantine’s rule, all persecution against the church ceased, and Christianity began to flourish. Believing that only Christianity could unify his vast Empire, Constantine supported the Church in every way; he funded the construction of churches, consulted the clergy in policy decisions, and provided legal protections and privileges to the church.

In 325, seeking to resolve theological disputes in the church which threatened the unity of his empire, Constantine convened the First Council of Nicaea which established the Nicene Creed and condemned Arian heresy. He also sent his mother St Helen to the Holy Land in 326 where she miraculously discovered the True Cross, and replaced many pagan temples with churches, the most famous being the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. St Helen returned to Constantinople where she reposed in 327. St Constantine continued to promote the welfare of the Church, and was baptized shortly before his death in 337.

The Vision of Saint Constantine ✝️

🔸The Vision of Saint Constantine ☦️🔸

Following the death of his father, Saint Constantine succeeded him as the Western Roman Emperor in 306 AD. Soon after, civil wars ensued between the co-emperors of the East and West as they contended for power and sole authority over the Empire. On the 28th of October in 312 AD, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (today called the Ponte Milvio in Northern Rome, Italy) was fought between the Emperor Constantine the Great - who had been imbued by his pious mother St Helen with great reverence for Christianity - and the pagan Emperor Maxentius.

According to tradition, the eve of the battle, Saint Constantine prayed to God for a sign that would strengthen and encourage his army. He then beheld in the sky a radiant cross inscribed with the words: “By this sign thou shalt conquer”. The chronicler Eusebius of Caesarea records that this vision marked the beginning of Constantine’s conversion to the Christian faith. The battle ended in a decisive victory for Constantine’s army, and he went on to become the sole emperor after defeating his other co-emperor Licinius at the Siege of Byzantium in 324 AD.

Thus, after centuries of brutal persecution under the pagan rulers, the Christian faith was finally granted peace within the Roman Empire, and was now poised to flourish under the protection of Saint Constantine.